Racial Profiling in Oz

If a foreigner murdered your beloved sister
    Then stole her shoes right off her still-warm dead body,
You’d be considered a victim of crime and
    Privy to all the rights afforded to you under the law?
       Right?

But because of the color of my skin,
    I was targeted as the villain;
When all I wanted was my rightful inheritance- -
    Ruby slippers that had been in my family for generations.

And to add insult to injury
    I didn’t get a song.

That homesick goodie-two-ruby-shoes,
    Who seemed to drop out of the sky, got a big number.

Midgets with helium-enhanced voices warbled on and on.

A brainless bag of straw in a hat got a solo.

A rusty tin can with legs sang and danced.

The mangy yellow-bellied so-called “King of the Jungle”
    belted out a big one.

While in mourning, my family jewels were heisted
    And I didn’t even get to sing about it.

I want the truth known,
              and I want a song!

And it had better now be, “It’s not easy to be green.”
    Or, My pretty, I’ll turn you into a frog, too!


Assignment: Non-rhyming poem in voice of fictional character.

Patricia Prewitt
November 26, 2006